SOCIALIST MODERNIZATION OF PRISHTINA: INTERROGATING TYPES OF URBAN AND ARCHITECTURAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE CITY

This study introduces the contextual history in which socialist modernization was accomplished in Prishtina, the capital city of Kosovo. It explores the changing image of the city through interpreting the temporal and spatial forms of urban and architectural contributions that occurred between late 1940s and 1980s. Our analysis classifies six types of such contribution, comparable to Hamilton’s model of the socialist city, which prove that the intentions of the modernist socialist urbanism and architecture in Prishtina were similar to other socialist cities. However, the political and cultural background of Prishtina was different from other ex-Yugoslavian cities, and we try to show what impact it had in the shaping of its urban and socialist features. Analysis identified two major undertakings to support this argument: firstly, the destruction of traditional architecture with high symbolic value, with intention to erase the cultural construct of the city through, allegedly, the liquidation of primitive culture and the backwardness of the city; and secondly, and the fragmentary nature of urban development which made sure that such backwardness would frame the urban identity of the city in the modern context.